just like the heart you break
by ulstergirl
Summary: Chuck and Sarah discuss what happens next, after Ellie's wedding. Set just after 2x22, Chuck vs the Ring.


**set soon after the end of 2x22, chuck vs the ring. content warning: language, sexual situations.**

--

Chuck's stomach is growling. He's been awake for what feels like four years, the measly slice of cake and handful of nuts and half-bottle of champagne are long gone and the single child-sized cheeseburger Casey grudgingly ordered at a late-night drive-thru is sitting in a pool of grease in his tightening gut. He feels under the bed, but Casey railed at him for twenty minutes when he discovered the Converse shoebox full of passports and fake IDs too easily, so instead of digging that out he stashes the computerized sleeve in his sock drawer, sliding the GPS-rigged watch in with it. The band-aid on the back of his neck tightens when he turns his head. Sarah, an expression he couldn't read on her face, had insisted that they implant a subcutaneous transmitter, and Chuck has never had this little fight in him.

It was real. It was supposed to be real.

Without Ellie and Awesome, the house feels empty. Chuck, dragging his feet, detours to the fridge to peer unseeing at its contents. He's just too keyed up to sleep; he glances at the blender and can feel a slight tingle, the growing knowledge that he can rewire it to function as a semiautomatic, but he glances away and the flash never comes.

They're so much more intense, this time.

Sarah's sitting on the couch, in the dark, a slowly warming bottle of champagne in her lap. She hasn't even bothered with a glass, she just lifts it to her lips for a long draft, as she stares at the blank television set.

"Want anything?"

"I'm good," she mumbles back, the end of it lost in another swallow of champagne.

General Beckman was... well, thrilled definitely wasn't the word, and enraged was too mild by far. Chuck was supposed to be an _analyst, Bryce_ the Intersect, and Sarah far, far away from Burbank. Beckman looked exasperated at the thought of Chuck's continued and central involvement with the project, and Chuck can't blame her; he feels the same way.

But she must've warmed to him, at least a little; it only took Casey and Sarah fifteen minutes to dissuade her from ordering his immediate execution, since he had been so stupid as to destroy the Intersect computer, along with its cube.

Just like Bryce before him.

Chuck remembers the heat of the panel on his palm and how Bryce was so convinced that Sarah wasn't coming with him, when there was no way she wouldn't. She said she was. And now she's stuck with him, and Chuck can't help it, but even through the massive clusterfuck this entire night has turned out to be, he's happy that she's here, that she will be here, even if it's only for a little while longer.

Sarah takes another long swig and sighs. "How badly did you burn your bridges at the Buy More?"

Chuck groans, dropping to the other end of the couch, resting his face in his hands. "Emmett will be lost in a day, two tops, without me, but I am _not_ going back there, Sarah. I spend another five minutes in a white button-down and gray tie and, well, if you think I did kung-fu earlier..."

She smiles and it's the first time she's smiled since. He feels just a little heartbroken but if only this choice he made is keeping her here, no wonder she isn't cheering or jumping for joy. "We'll need to come up for a cover for you."

"Stockboy at the Orange Orange?"

"Very funny." She tucks her legs up and lets her head loll on the back of the couch. "An independent computer repairman sounds more up your alley."

"Can't we go with world-famous game engine designer?"

"'World-famous' is the opposite of 'cover,'" she says, chuckling a little.

"Not if you play it right."

She looks down. "What Roark said earlier," she says quietly. "Fulcrum has orders to take you out, and obviously they're not all gone. I'll have to ask General Beckman in the morning, but there's no way you can stay here, in an unsecure location. We'll probably have to move you to a safe house."

"By 'safe house' do you mean 'airless underground bunker'?" Chuck's voice has gone up half an octave, and he clears his throat. "What exactly...?"

"We find a place together," she says, and her voice is flat, businesslike. Not like before the rehearsal dinner.

"I can't believe you were supposed to be gone tomorrow."

She glances at her watch. "Three hours from now," she sighs, sweeping her hair back, passing him the champagne bottle. Their fingers touch.

"You must be upset."

Sarah's quiet for a long moment before climbing to her feet. "I wasn't going to leave in the morning," she admits, not looking at him.

Chuck can't believe what he's hearing. "You were—"

"And now I'm still not going to leave in the morning." Her voice is deceptively light. "You have no idea how much we're gonna have to go through tomorrow, so you'd better get to bed."

Nothing in her body language says she'll follow him there. "I can take the couch, if..."

"I can..."

He stands, too, and tonight it feels like everything hurts all the more, because it wasn't supposed to be like this, and while he wanted her with him, it wasn't supposed to be this way.

"They're not here and you're still my fake girlfriend and after all the concussions Casey's had lately I doubt he'll be watching the surveillance," Chuck says wearily. "And we can have one last night before everything goes back to the way it was."

Sarah's smile is a little sad. "Everything's changed," she says, catching his hand in hers, squeezing it. "You're more important than ever."

"Then I guess you can't begrudge me this."

--

They leave the lights off for no reason; Casey's surveillance is thorough, and if he's watching, having the lights off won't change that. They peer at identical bottles and Sarah's lathering Ellie's shampoo into her hair when Chuck remembers, all too well, the sight of her in wet black underthings, scrubbing away weaponized fruit punch. His mouth had been dry, eyes glazed, and she would've killed him if she'd seen what was going on in his head.

Sarah's naked now, and there's an inevitability about it. She's not going to ask or bat her eyelashes at him; this will just _happen_, there will be no guilt or blame assigned.

"How is this different?" he asks, running a hand down her back, watching her shiver against his touch.

"For tonight I'm not your handler or your boss," she says, and her gaze keeps trying to shy from his. "So tomorrow, this didn't happen."

He scoffs. "Like it's going to happen now."

She glances down at him and her eyes are dancing when she glances back up. "Oh, I think it's going to happen now."

--

She has no clothes at his place. It was too hot not to sleep naked. It was the champagne and...

He's preemptively making excuses, like a high school kid caught out after his curfew, when all Casey's going to do is give that little grunt and raise an eyebrow a quarter of an inch and that'll be the end of it, and there's no way Beckman is going to find out about this, no way.

They fall off the bed in a tangle of limbs and she lets out the sexiest groan he's ever heard. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he pants, reaching for her. "Guess the fall wasn't long enough to flip a switch."

His ass is going to be black and blue. He doesn't give a damn.

They bash against everything: chair legs, the sharp corners of the box spring, his dresser. The condom doesn't survive the fall and they find another, her hips poised over him, following the smooth stroke of her hand as she slides it on. She protests the first time he sets his mouth against the side of her neck, but the brush of his thumb over her breast silences that.

They're so frantic to touch each other, to join, that they can find no rhythm, not until she finally pulls back and leads him by the hand to the bed again. He slides his thumb between her thighs and her legs are spread wide, her heels braced against the edge of the mattress, and this time her gaze doesn't shy away.

Gratitude made sex with Jill incredibly sweet. He had wanted her for so long, his heart had been broken over her for so long, that having her, feeling her whisper how much she loved him, had been like coming home, like finding that the five years of hell had been worth it, if only for this. He had never gotten over her and he had stupidly thought, then, that he would never need to, that it was better he and Sarah had never taken that final step, because this was what he was meant to do, to find Jill, to be with her, Intersect be damned.

Nothing had felt more right.

Not until now.

Sarah wraps her legs tight around him and pulls him in to her, and when he lets himself fall into bed with her, she takes his weight, gravity sealing his hips to hers. She grabs him by the hair and their mouths meet, groans vibrating against their lips, and he can't get close enough, this still isn't close enough, and he pulls back for his first thrust feeling like he's killing himself.

And then, oh fuck, she bucks under him, making soft demanding noises, her teeth against his lower lip, her abs rippling under his palm.

If he's had sex before then there is no word for this.

"Sarah," he breathes directly into her ear, and she whimpers, Chuck bracing himself to stop her from flipping them over. His voice is shaking. "God, Sarah."

"Chuck," she breathes, a sob at the edge of it, and then she shoves his shoulder and rolls and he's under her, her wet hair curling around her face and her reddened lips trembling with each moan. He scrabbles, his hands at her hips, tight.

His heart is hammering. The Intersect sees her and wants to incapacitate her; he can fling her across the room with the buck of his hips and a well-timed punch, he can press at that one spot in her neck until she passes out.

Chuck sees her and that heightened awareness, that fear, fades.

_You think Jill was bad? This is going to be a million times worse._

"Let it ride," he whispers, burying his hand in her hair, rolling her over again. They're dangerously close to the edge of the mattress again. She grabs his head and rolls her hips against his and they come, frantic, and when he opens his eyes to see hers gazing back at him it's all over, in one last shudder and the harsh pants of their breath and she is so warm, so fucking beautiful.

"God," she moans under him, arching, and he grins; he can't help himself. She smiles back.

"That was incredible."

"Just wait until we're on the way back from a mission," she says, her voice low and incredibly sexy. "Keyed up. Or..."

And she trails off, and it takes him a moment longer to see what she already has; this is it, tonight is it, unless he wants another layer of lies to work through, another secret he can never tell to anyone. That he loves his cover girlfriend. That they're only together because the only man she can ever really be with died tonight.

"This isn't... we can't do this, can we," he says, even still with his hand in her hair and the taste of her on his lips.

She shakes her head, slowly. "Not while..." She traces her fingertips over his temple, then meets his eyes again.

"I know, you said..." He can't look at her. "You said I could have what I wanted, once it was out, but even then, Sarah..."

Her eyes are wet. "Look at me," she says, cupping his face in her hands. "If what you want is a normal life, then this is it, this is my last mission, this is the last thing I will do with CIA. Get this out of your head. Make you Chuck again."

He kisses her, long, hard, as they part, and he rolls onto his side, pulling her with him, their limbs still tangled, sated. "That's what I want."

She brushes his hair back and smiles, slightly. "I know your father never wanted this life for you, that Bryce said this would..." She closes her eyes and a tear streaks down her cheek. "But this is in your blood. I think this entire experience has been to show you that."

He shakes his head impatiently. "I don't care what's 'in my blood,' Sarah, I don't care what anyone else thinks I was meant to do. I love you. And this entire mess started tonight because of that, because I couldn't let you go if there was any way I could help you." He brushes her hair behind her ear, kissing her cheek. "I will do whatever I can to be with you."

She rests her forehead against his. "Then we can't be like this," she says, slowly, carefully. "Not until it's over. It will put us both in danger."

He closes his eyes, his fingertips drifting over her shoulder blades, down her spine. "Why can't we just get in the car tonight," he whispers, frustrated. "Drive until we can't keep our eyes open. Start over."

"We could've," she murmurs. "But you want a normal life. And you uploaded the Intersect."

"But I couldn't not."

She sighs, sadly, and brushes her lips over his. "And that's why I love you."


End file.
